Peter Behrens's Blog, page 492

Courthouse, Presidio County, Texas.

Marfa Christmas Chevrolet

Made it out of Maine yesterday at 6am just before the ice storm locked everything down. Landed El Paso and drove three hours across the desert in brilliant West Texas light. Antelope, hawks, and mule deer. Reached Marfa just as the sun went down, and before the Get Go closed. Felt like coming home. BB & I love this part of the world. The C-10 has been looked after by Pat Rogers. Took her out for some exercise this afternoon on the Pinto Canyon Road.

Banff, Bob Dylan, Minnesota, and the Mazda

I've been reading Eugene McCarthy's book of poems--and  couple of essays--called Minnesota, and thinking about the Gopher State.  The only state moniker that memorializes a rodent, I think. I notice lately MN has been trying to rebrand as The North Star State. As a Canadian, that doesn't wash with me. And the North Stars were an NHL team based in the Twin Cities--but they folded the tent twenty years ago. However...I own one very fond memory of Minnesota. In the olden days, just around the time that little Laura Ingalls Wilder was homesteading out on that little house on the prairie, not long after the Sioux wars, and probably around the time of the Great Northfield Minnesota raid, I used to drive across that godforsaken country called Minnesotio a couple of times a year. I was commuting between Maine and Alberta. Thirty years ago this week somewhere around the NW corner of Lake Superior my car, a 1976 Mazda 808 station wagon, started bucking and snorting and generally misbehaving. It was -30 degrees F but I figured the problem wasn't cold per se, but issues with the carburetor. I spent the night more or less sleeping in the back of the car in a shut-down-for-the year State Park somewhere south of International Falls. Next morning limped it into good old Duluth, which is (almost) Bob Dylan's home town. Went to the Mazda dealership where they immediately went to work on the car. They rebuilt the carb,  did a complete tune-up and handed me a bill for...$125.  I think I had about a hundred bucks on me and most of it in Canadian money. Credit cards--not. I asked if they would take a check. Sure, no problem! How about a Canadian check? Sure, no problem. Me: Want to see my driver's license? Them: Nah, what for? Still hard for me to believe, but they took the check (cheque, in Canada) from a scruffy Canadian hippie, drawn on the Bank of Montreal branch in Banff, Alberta, no questions asked. 
The Bobster, from "Something There Is About You" 
"Thought I'd shaken the wonder and the phantoms of my youth
Rainy days on the Great Lakes, walking the hills of old Duluth
There was me and Danny Lopez, cold eyes, black night and then there was Ruth
Something there is about you that brings back a long forgotten truth."
1985 PB photo ©2013 JW Burleson

Another Autoliterate Truck of the Year Candidate: The 1968 F-100 Stepside

1950 Oldsmobile Rocket 88

Saw this car for sale at Motorland in Biddeford, Maine. Most of the old iron in the State of Maine has been tucked away in the barn for the winter. It's a challenge to find live shots of interesting old trucks and cars. Calling all correspondents to the south and west: go out with a camera, find a beautiful beaten-up old truck, and jpeg the photos please.
Heading to Marfa on Sunday. The metal-hunting has to be better there.

Michael Moore: December Desert: Nevada

Another Autoliterate Truck of the Year Candidate

Rascular density is the quality we seek.

Senator Gene McCarthy: The Model T

The Model T
(to Robert Frost)

You are a Model T painted black.
The choke wire sticks out of the radiator.
The crank hangs in a  sling.
Starting you is not easy.
The spark must be set right,
the magneto coils dry.
Your kick can break a man's arm.
On cold days one may have to jack up
one of your hind wheels
to get you started.

Once started you are dangerous.
You are always slightly in gear.
Your brakes are marginal.
There is risk in riding with you.
Your fuel tank is under the front seat.
You run on gasoline or kerosene.
Either can explode.

You are not exactly comfortable.
You have leaf springs but no shock absorbers.
Your tires have inner tubes
and are not puncture proof.
You carry no spare tire,
only tire tools and patching.

Because your fuel system depends on gravity,
not on vacuum,
you climb steep hills in reverse.
You provide sure passage in spring mud,
have clearance enough for pasture rocks
and for the center ridge of deep rutted roads.

Your fenders carry small boys.
Your running boards are lined with poets.
You get us there.
                                                           --Gene McCarthy
                                                             from Minnesota

1948 Ford F-5 from Goose Rocks Beach; 5600 original miles

I remember riding in this firetruck in Fourth of July parades at Goose Rocks Beach. Saw it for sale last week at Motorland in Biddeford, Maine. 5600 original miles. The Town of Kennebunkport bought the truck the year after the Great Fire of 1947, which burned to the ocean at both ends of Goose Rocks Beach.

Biddeford Mills: the Ford Coupe & Ford Phaeton

I found a 1938 Ford Coupe for sale at Motorland in Biddeford, Maine, alongside a Ford Phaeton. It's quite a shock to walk into their garage which is in the heart of the old Satanic mills complex on the Saco river.  When I was a kid those textile mills--Pepperell Sheet, and others-- were still operating. I plan to go back there, not on a subzero day, and take some more pictures. Of the cars and the mills.